


Hoping, dreaming, wishing

by Fatale (femme)



Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M, Humor, mozzie-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 06:55:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13289451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale
Summary: Mozzie has given an inordinate amount of thought to what constitutes the perfect woman. Some would say a creepy amount (Neal, specifically), but Mozzie considers it a mental exercise the same way he idly plans heists while sipping cabernet in the bathtub or decides how to forge Etruscan pottery while styling his sizable collection of wigs and toupees.





	Hoping, dreaming, wishing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sapphire2309](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire2309/gifts).



> for Sapphire 2309, who bet me that I couldn't make her like Mozzie/Elizabeth.

 

  
Mozzie has given an inordinate amount of thought to what constitutes the perfect woman. Some would say a creepy amount (Neal, specifically), but Mozzie considers it a mental exercise the same way he idly plans heists while sipping cabernet in the bathtub or decides how to forge Etruscan pottery while styling his sizable collection of wigs and toupees.

The perfect woman would be beautiful, of course, but not in an obvious way. Flashy women are more Neal's style. It would be okay if Mozzie was the only one to think her lovely. The ideal woman would be clever, have exemplary taste in wine, art and music, because what good would his daring heists be if his lady love had not the capacity to appreciate them?

It is, Mozzie can admit, a tall order and he might be inclined to settle for any combination thereof, but he has not ever met a woman that checked even half his boxes. But he mostly associates with criminals and other people of low moral character, so.

His gaze catches on a stack of vinyls he has to return to El. She'd loaned them out to get him to listen to anything other than Puccini, with the promise that he'd give them an honest try. His mind, often and irrevocably made once an opinion has formed, is a formidable thing to try to change. But El always does. And he likes what he's heard. The melodic cacophony of Jazz, the sultry exquisite pain of the Blues, El really has fantastic taste, in well, everything. Her wine selection is beyond reproach, her knowledge of art is profound - oh holy fuck.

Elizabeth Burke is his perfect woman.

  
\---

 

On his phone, he finds a snapshot of the two of them in a park, prints it out and puts it in a gold frame next to his bed at his new Thursday, cleverly disguised as a flophouse for folks of ill repute. "I'm going to make you mine," he whispers lovingly. Oh, ok, that's creepy. Too far, he's gone too far.

 

\---

 

He has taken to carrying around his photo of El with him wherever he goes.

He's sitting at Neal's table, photo sitting in the center, and gazing at her lovely visage.

"She loves me, she loves me not," Mozzie sighs, plucking petals off the rose he pilfered from Neal's bedside table. There's a lot of petals. This is taking longer than he anticipated. Possibly, he hasn't thought this through.

He needs to find a way to steal her away from the crumpled Suit. So he does what he's best at: he plans.

 

\---

 

  
He sends her flowers on a Thursday from Wednesday's house, sends her Belgian chocolates on Saturday from Monday's bunker, writes her love letters while eating canned beans and feeding his pet rat small bites of 100 year old Beaufort D'Ete cheese, $45 a pound.

His phone rings and he looks at the caller ID. "Sweet Jiminy Cricket, it's her!" he says to his rat.

"Hello?" he says, picking up the phone.

"Hey, Mozzie." Her warm voice crackles across the line, melodious beyond belief. His heart speeds up, his palms sweat. His impetigo flares up. It must be love. “Do you want to come for dinner at our house tomorrow?” she asks. “I know it’s late notice, but it was kind of spur of the moment. Neal’s going to be there.”

“For you, my Great Lady, anything,” Mozzie says grandly.

There’s a moment of silence. “Ok, great,” El says. “See you at 8 pm.”

Mozzie hangs up, feeling smug. That went swimmingly. He scratches his side.

 

\---

 

He arrives at the Burkes’ wearing his shiniest cravat. Time to put his best foot forward, show El his peerless sophistication. Neal walks up behind him just as he’s ringing the doorbell.

“Is that a cravat?” Neal asks in a frankly, judgmental manner.

“Some of us have truly refined taste,” he tells Neal imperiously, “evoking a bygone era of sophistication and elegance.” Neal looks great in a slim-cut charcoal grey suit and skinny tie, drat him.

“Well, don’t let me stop you, Mr. Darcy,” Neal says, looking amused.

Just as Mozzie’s about to educate Neal in all the ways that is not an insult but an apropos comparison, the door opens and there’s his beauty, the love of his life, the object of all his myriad affections -- and she has spaghetti sauce on her cheek.

“Hi, you guys,” she says, looking harried. “Peter said he was going to make dinner and then he had to work late, so I’m whipping up some spaghetti alla puttanesca on the fly.”

“I can help,” Mozzie says, too eagerly. Neal shoots him an odd look, but brushes past Mozzie to go find Peter after giving Elizabeth a quick hug, no doubt, so they can trade secrets and talk about how much hair they have, how square their jaws are, what a burden being so handsome is.

Mozzie follows El into the kitchen and uncorks his wine, letting it breathe.

El stirs a pot on the stove, catches sight of her cheek in the glass of the cabinets and laughs. Mozzie hastily grabs a hand towel and wipes the sauce off. They’re standing close and this is what Mozzie has been waiting for--

“Moz,” Elizabeth says, “someone’s been sending me anonymous gifts. Do you happen to know anything about that?”

“I could,” Mozzie says, feeling deliciously coquettish. “How perceptive of you.”

“They were all wrapped in brown shipping paper,” she explains. “Peter thought someone had sent me a bomb, so he took it to the FBI for analysis. There weren’t any fingerprints. There’s only one person I know that would bother to wrap chocolates without leaving fingerprints.”

“Powder free latex gloves. I see no reason to leave errant DNA all over the city.”

She hesitates, then says, “Mozzie--”

Peter and Neal come into the kitchen, interrupting what Mozzie has the sinking sensation may not have been the epically romantic moment he was hoping for.

Peter comes up behind El, fingers resting lightly on her waist, and drops a kiss on her cheek. There’s nothing particularly sensual about it, certainly nothing untoward, but the way she leans her body back into his, turns her cheek for his kiss automatically -- it’s intimate. It speaks of habit, of trust, of comfort. “Hey, hon,” he says softly.

“Hi, hon,” she answers.

With one last kiss, Peter takes the plates Elizabeth set on the counter into the dining area to set the table and Neal takes the glassware, following close behind.

Mozzie’s knees suddenly turn to jelly, and he leans against the kitchen island to keep himself upright, body bowed over the counter.

He feels a wave of longing and loneliness so profound wash over him that it steals his breath. He wants Elizabeth, he wants what she has with Peter. He wants…

"You really love him," Mozzie says, and hates the way his voice cracks a little over the word _love_. He can feel his face start to crumple, wonders what he's giving away. His poker face in matters of the heart has always been garbage, but that's probably because he's had so little practice. “I’m sorry, I didn’t--”

Never someone lacking in a multitude of superfluous words, Mozzie finds himself suddenly at a loss. It wasn’t about Elizabeth, not really, though he does love her, perhaps is even a little in love with her.

“Oh, Moz,” Elizabeth says softly, standing beside him, and slides her hands over his, where they’re clasped on the counter, knuckles white. “Don’t give up on finding that someone.”

El gets it, gets him. She always has.

“She won’t be as perfect as you,” Mozzie says quietly and sniffles.

“She won’t have to be -- she’ll be perfect for _you_.”

“I thought we were soulmates,” Mozzie confesses, even though it hurts. He knows it will sting less eventually; it’s not the first time he’s had his heart broken, but he’d hoped it would be the last. Maybe he came here knowing El was unattainable. Maybe that was why he’d decided she was the one for him and nothing less would do. Maybe that’s what fear and loneliness does to a person -- makes them stop looking, settle for what they can get. But Mozzie isn’t ready to give up quite yet. He looks up at Elizabeth, her lovely blue eyes, and knows, he’ll find true love one day. Until then, he fights and he hopes and dreams.

"I think you can have more than one soulmate," El says and squeezes his hand.

 

 

 

 


End file.
